Ten things I thought about today

1. There are worse things than sitting at a desk. What did Mark Twain say? Men will climb a mountain and call it recreation, yet sit at a desk and call it hard work. 


2. Is vegemite on toast an irresponsible lunch? 

3. I rather miss Christmas now. Sigh. Such a great day. Funny how you give a kid a great present and without fail they'll prefer the box. 

4. Curly hair runs in our family but not one of us have ever been nicknamed curly. 


5. I don't need any more skirts no matter how cheap that Dries Van Noten one is going on eBay. 


6. 394 emails. That can't be right. 


7. It's lunch time, right? 


8. Mark Twain was wrong. This is HARD. 


9. I wonder what Ellie and Kate are doing? I wish someone would invent an app that made it possible to call your pets.

10. It's Monday, isn't it? No, hang on ...oh, right. It is Monday. 


11. Must make a note to pack the camera tomorrow. 

The train stopping in the buttercup fields

While I don't relish the thought of going back to work, I do enjoy organising to go back to work. The last few weeks has been a happy unstructured affair of late rising, jeans and Birkenstocks; today I ironed frocks, sorted neat blouses and packed my new bag. I also decided, no matter what I choose to wear, that these shoes have waited long enough to make their debut. 

Where one fern was always green

We've had our fair share of rain this week, now it's hot and humid. Everything was green today. 

If there has to a last day, this may as well be it

The last day of a holiday is never easy. I am prone to industrial strength mooching and an unhealthy focus on immediate days gone by. To counter this time-wasting,  I elected to do something cheerful and harmless yet surprising. Something that involved scarves, ladies in aprons and possibly a teacup.

So I applied my favourite perfume

 dressed sensibly, armed myself with a large bag

and went to some op and consignment stores way outside my comfort zone. It was a wise move for at the op shops I caught

a couple of silk scarves, $2 each

...a huge fuzzy wool scarf - possibly cashmere or alpaca or a blend of both, soft as a bunny's belly ($5) and some bluebirds on three bread & butter plates - $1 each. 

Frankly I don't know how I have survived to this point in history without these bird plates. 

Nearby stands a consignment store where years ago I, in a fit of rationale I still don't recognize or can explain, decided against buying a genuine Hermes camera bag for $85.00. I didn't really need it, I reasoned. I'll find another Hermes bag I like better one day, I told myself. 

I still can't believe I did that. Perhaps I was possessed by the spirit of some long dead relative who didn't like me much. 

It appears lost-Hermes kharma was in play because I scored 

a grey wool-cotton blend Marni skirt for $68 in pristine condition

a fascinating georgette skirt in a snakeskin print for $18 (Seriously, this winter: black tights, black flat boots, fierce black coat, bright red clutch, matching lipstick, this skirt, me. Can't wait.)

An unworn black Charactere blazer for $20

and a denim Isabel Marant Etoile shirt dress in denim for $54. If I were to tell you how much I love this dress I'd have no time to wear it.

By now I was on a roll and almost looking forward to going back to work so I went to another op shop to find

two very pretty old English dinner plates ($8 the pair) a mother of pearl pendant, a red glass Czech brooch, a filigree dress clip  and an effective bracelet - $18 the lot. The pendant and dress clip are lovely.

Sometimes when I'm stuck at my desk involved in a futile argument about section 15a with someone on the phone while my lunch hour whizzes past again, I dream of just walking out and going somewhere (anywhere) where I can scour racks of clothes and handle sweet jewellery. This year I will have some reference points for those escape dreams.

Guest post by Kate

Here's a list of things I'd do if I had thumbs: 


*Eat more cat food
*Hang feathers from every square inch of the ceiling
*Take all the sheets from the big cupboard and make resting places all over the house
*Eat all the cheese in the cold box
*Lock the round ears in the bathroom
*Learn to drive.


It sounds like too much hard work, frankly. 


The smaller round ears came home yesterday with a new coat. It doesn't have stripes and there are pockets that still had someone else's tissues in them. 


"Ewww," the smaller round ears said and flicked them in the bin. I smelt them later - the last owner had an allergy to cats which I think is ironic but I'm not sure. 

The bigger round ears came home and said "Oh, just what you need, more clothes." He had on a tie with stripes. Everyone should wear stripes. They make you look important. Both the round ears annoy me but they have thumbs and can open cat food. I dislike the bigger round ears less because he gives me a little piece of steak whenever he has one for dinner. The small round ears tried to give me yoghurt the other day. 


I reserve a special look of contempt for that kind of behaviour. 


The bigger round ears, the tom, is longer too so if I need to sit on someone I choose him, partly because he has more lap but also because it annoys the smaller round ears. Here's a handy hint: if you want a cat to sit on your lap, don't ask it to. This smacks of desperation to a cat and to honest, it embarrasses us a little when you're needy. 


Also, if you don't want us to sit on magazines you're reading, don't read magazines. 


Now, to recap: 

See? Important. Also, ears should be triangles. 

Unimportant. Why no stripes, that's what I want to know. 

Milk no sugar

Mostly when I read mainstream fashion magazines I'm pointedly ignoring the text and poring over the pictures. Even with this level of sifting I find it hard to avoid references to tea dresses.

Before every fashion writer started banging on about tea dresses I had a very fixed idea of what they were: light vaporous dresses in gelato shades and floral prints, trimmed with wisps of lace and smelling faintly of violets.  Julia Ryder wore them in Brideshead Revisited, the Mitford sisters would have had dozens between them. You can wear them with hats and gloves, or bare feet and uncombed hair, and either way look enchanting.

Now it seems any kind of dress made from any old fabric in any variation of a floral or even abstract print is a tea dress.  Certainly this is what I am learning from the magazines.

This is my tea dress. It's second hand and the shape and details suggest it dates back to the late seventies (it has draw string shoulders and tiers). I gave an obliging young man thirty dollars for it at the Surry Hills Market five years ago.

It's made by Simona Couture, a division of an Australian label. I understand the dress would be made from a pattern but to the specific measurements of the buyer. The fabric is marked as Swiss cotton and the colour can't help but improve your mood.

Regrettably no one ever invites me for tea but my tea dress still gets lots of outings every Summer. This year I wore it for Christmas dinner, with neither gloves nor bare feet but a vintage Gucci belt:

If you have a tea dress or a tea dress anecdote, or a view to what actually constitutes a tea dress, I'd be very interested to know.

Does my blog look big in this?

Call me primitive, but I always wondered how everyone else made their blog look so nice.

Now I know.